Is Mondo* the future of mobile banking?

One of the things that distinguishes Red River as a software company is the way in which we leverage new technology. By encouraging our staff to share new and upcoming services with the team we find ourselves in a good position to advise clients and develop modern applications.

A few months ago, one of our developers came across this talk from a founder of Mondo. Mondo is a bank which is making waves in the industry by focusing on digital services for its customers. One of the ways in which they do this is the use of an open Application Programming Interface (API). Open API’s are important for organisations such as ourselves as they allow us to interact with other services in a logical & documented way. Having searched for banks that provide this service in the past, we have always been pretty disappointed by the options presented to us. Another core feature of Mondo is its real time processing of data. Unlike traditional banks (which take a number of days to show transactions on your account) settlements in Mondo are shown instantly. This is useful for users who can immediately see fraudulent transactions on their account and organisations who deal with a large volume of transactions.

Knowing all of this, we signed up for the Mondo Alpha program and paid a visit to their offices to collect our new card. Upon registering with the app, our PIN number was messaged to us and we were ready to go. With the card in our possession, we decided to test it at three high street supermarkets. In these tests we found that the app notified us of each transaction while we were still at the checkout. Once the transactions appeared on the app, they were all correctly placed into the ‘groceries’ expense section. Given the comparison to other personal banking apps, it was impressive to say the least.

Disruption in this way is uplifting in industries who are traditionally resistant to change. While it is difficult to predict if we will be all be carrying a Mondo card in the next few years, it is a good indication of what is yet to come.